Focus Report, Volume 86, Number 3, August 2019 Page: INSIDE FRONT COVER
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Amending the Texas Constitution
Article 17 of the Texas Constitution describes the
process by which the Constitution may be amended and
requires that amendments be approved by a majority of
Texas voters to go into effect. For a proposition to appear
on the ballot, the Legislature must adopt a proposed
constitutional amendment in a joint resolution. Joint
resolutions contain the ballot wording of the propositions
to go before the voters, and some require "enabling"
legislation to further specify how the amendment would
operate.
Joint resolutions
The Texas Legislature proposes constitutional
amendments in joint resolutions that originate in either
the House of Representatives or the Senate. For example,
Proposition 1 on the November 5, 2019, ballot was
proposed by House Joint Resolution (HJR) 72, introduced
by Rep. James White and sponsored in the Senate by Sen.
Joan Huffman. Art. 17, sec. 1 of the Texas Constitution
requires that a joint resolution be adopted by at least
a two-thirds vote of the membership of each house of
the Legislature (100 votes in the House, 21 votes in the
Senate) to be presented to voters. The governor cannot
veto a joint resolution.
Amendments may be proposed in either regular or
special sessions. A joint resolution includes the text of
the proposed constitutional amendment and specifies
an election date. The ballot wording of a proposition is
specified in the joint resolution, and the Legislature has
broad discretion in the wording. The secretary of state
conducts a random drawing to assign each proposition
a ballot number if more than one proposition is being
considered.
If voters reject an amendment proposal, the
Legislature may resubmit it. For example, the voters
rejected a proposition authorizing $300 million in general
obligation bonds for college student loans at an August
10, 1991, election, then approved an identical proposition
at the November 5, 1991, election after the Legislature
readopted the proposal and resubmitted it in essentially
the same form.Election date
The Legislature may call an election for voter
consideration of proposed constitutional amendments on
any date, as long as election authorities have enough time
to provide notice to the voters and print the ballots. In
recent years, most proposals have been submitted at the
November general election held in odd-numbered years.Publication
Texas Constitution Art. 17, sec. 1 requires that a brief
explanatory statement of the nature of each proposed
amendment, along with the ballot wording for each, be
published twice in each newspaper in the state that prints
official notices. The first notice must be published 50 to
60 days before the election. The second notice must be
published on the same day of the following week. Also,
the secretary of state must send a complete copy of each
amendment to each county clerk, who must post it in the
courthouse at least 30 days before the election.
The secretary of state prepares the explanatory
statement, which must be approved by the attorney
general, and arranges for the required newspaper
publication. For each proposition, the estimated total cost
of publication twice in newspapers across the state for
the November 5 election is $177,289, according to the
Legislative Budget Board.
Enabling legislation
Some constitutional amendments are self-enacting
and require no additional legislation to implement
their provisions. Other amendments grant discretionary
authority to the Legislature to enact legislation in a
particular area or within certain guidelines. These
amendments require "enabling" legislation to fill in
the details of how the amendment would operate. The
Legislature often adopts enabling legislation in advance,
making the effective date of the legislation contingent
on voter approval of a particular amendment. If voters
reject the amendment, the legislation dependent on the
constitutional change does not take effect.0
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Texas. Legislature. House of Representatives. Research Organization. Focus Report, Volume 86, Number 3, August 2019, periodical, August 27, 2019; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1364417/m1/2/?q=%22~1~1%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.